First of all, here's the website.

http://www.piratekart.com/

Despite the name and the fact that their logo is a big pirate flag, this is not a website for pirated games. This is a website for free indie games. These guys are packaging up a bunch of indie games and then taking them to the Game Developer's Conference, and also putting them online for anyone to download as a giant 1.4 GB zip file (that's the size of the last one they did anyway, which was for the Indie Games Festival).

This is a pretty good chance to get some recognition for your games, if you have any that you feel are good enough to share outside the RPG Maker cesspool.

I emailed them about how they felt about ripped resources and got this response:


You want to get upgraded from RPG Maker user to indie game developer? This is your chance. Go to piratekart.com and click the big green button.

Submission was supposed to be only last weekend, but since being mentioned on Penny Arcade they have extended the deadline and are still accepting games. I'm not sure when they will close it off for real, so if I were you I'd hurry.

If you want to download the game package they put together for the Indie Games Festival, head here.

Ok that sounds horrible...ripped resoures yeah! we want more of it its ok!......really? So the ppl that worked really hard making them and don't want them used on other things..#$%^ them huh? I don't work hard on my games for a bunch of pirate wannabes to get famous off it.

It means that games with rips from SNES/PSX or whatever console are allowed, lato. Not rips from other indie games. It's a double standard but double standard accepted by the RM community... and apparently part of the indie scene as well.

Um isnt that the SAME thing, no actually even worse cause your stealing from a big company lol, do they want there hard work used on other games? Why am I even asking that..a person would have to be stupid not to know.

Um, any rips they use in their games aren't going to be sold, they are just going to be shown off at the GDC. Which costs quite a bit to get in. They take all your mini-games and compile them into one. Kinda like Mario Party. It's actually kinda cool, i've already thought about submitting a few things...

Nah, it's not theft, it's borrowing without permission. There are only a few companies that would even care to C&D you.(when your not trying to make any money off it.)

"It's not theft it's borrowing without permission." HAaha yeah that just says it all. Case closed

I don't think it's theft to use ripped resources, especially if you're not making money off your project. In the context of big commercial games, keep in mind that the artists who make the art don't actually own it - the producers and execs do, so even if you asked for permission and gave a royalty to the developing company, the person who did the "hard work" would never see that money.

Either way, game design is always collaborative - it's near impossible for one person to program/design/make art for a game alone. Using pre-made art helps us learning designers work on honing our skills at making games fun to play. I use ripped graphics and music and I consider myself like a music composer who uses samples of other people's songs. Kanye Wests "borrows" from a lot of people but he manipulates samples to create something original.

So yeah, don't hate. Just always give credit where credit is due!

I gotta agree with lato on this one. Its one thing to use 'em as practice and even to release them, but this is for showcasing indie game development.
It just seems logical anything submitted should be indie and should be own work.

I agree with that too actually. While rips are commonly allowed within the insular RM community, I thought that the bigger indie scene would not be as lenient, especially with the intent of showcasing games to the Game Developer's Conference.